WHITE HOUSE, USA -- Donald Rumsfeld, the outgoing Secretary of Defense, held a press conference in the White House today. Still insistent that the shaky ground of the occupation in Iraq is in no way his fault, he instead blamed the quagmire on faulty simulations provided by the Department of Defense in 2002-2003.

Rumsfeld, at right, totally beating the President at a thumb war

"You go to war with the simulations you have, not the ones you want." stated Rumsfeld, "The Pentagon really let us down on this one."

"As you can see, the simulations had the 'Coalition of the Willing', shown here as He-Man, totally kicking Cobra Commander's ass." he continued, holding up the action figures for the assembled press corps, "What we were led to believe would happen afterwards, however, proved not to be the case. The sims were faulty in that we were unable to get a Skeletor to stand in as the Iraqis, as the President never lets him out of his sight."

"Additionally, Condi," he said, referring to the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, "busted into my toy chest, stole Beastman and totally rubbed the fuzz off him."

Rumsfeld then yielded the podium to Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita. DiRita, in turn, blamed the failure to account for Iraq's insurgency on what he called, "A combination of budget cuts and our total ignorance of Iraqian culture. I mean, in 2002 we had, like, three guys here who spoke Iraqian and I only found out that Iraq has no 'u' a few days ago. Can't those 'tards even spell English rightly?"

Rumsfeld: "Dubya, come away from that TV and help us plan the next war!"
Bush: "But I don't wanna. C'mon, He-Man is on! It's the one where he bends Trap-Jaw's arm! <pout> You're not the boss of me."

Once White House security had cleared the room of those unpatriotic reporters that had 'booed' and 'hissed' at the candid admission from DiRita, he continued, "Budget cuts after the fall of the Iron Curtain hamstrung our simulation capabilities. Our last system, the Nintendo Gameboy, was purchased in late 1990 to simulate Operation Desert Storm. You totally can't use them in the dark and someone ate Cheezies and got the screen all covered in grody orange fingerprints. Also, Tetris is jammed in there real good and it needs new batteries."

The Gameboy procurement, originally to cost $129USD per unit, was plagued by production delays at Rockwell International. With those delays came a considerable increase in the cost of the programme; by the time the ruggedized Gameboys started field testing in 1994 the unit price had ballooned to $40,000USD each. By comparison, in World War II North American Aviation built the successful P-51 Mustang fighter for $50,000USD apiece.

Incoming Secretary of Defense, Robert M. Gates, is hopeful for the future. "For the moment the Free World is stuck with the action figure-based sims, but I'm proud to announce that we've just drafted a simulation modernization programme and put it out to tender. I'm totally hoping for an Xbox for Christmas. That'd be wicked!"